The System of Nature, Vol. 1 by Baron D'Holbach

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considers disadvantageous. It is only by the aid of experience, that manacquires the faculty of understanding what he ought to love; of knowingwhat he ought to fear. Are his organs sound? his experience will hetrue: are they unsound? it will be false: in the first instance he willhave reason, prudence, foresight; he will frequently foresee very remoteeffects; he will know, that what he sometimes contemplates as a good,may possibly become an evil, by its necessary or probable consequences:that what must be to him a transient evil, may by its result procure hima solid and durable good. It is thus experience enables him to foreseethat the amputation of a limb will cause him painful sensation, heconsequently is obliged to fear this operation, and he endeavours toavoid the pain; but if experience has also shewn him, that thetransitory pain this amputation will cause him may be the means ofsaving his life; the preservation, of his existence being of necessitydear to him, he is obliged to submit himself to the momentary pain witha view to procuring a permanent good, by which it will be overbalanced.

The will, as we have elsewhere said, is a modification of the brain, bywhich it is disposed to action or prepared to give play to the organs.This will is necessarily determined by the qualities, good or bad,agreeable or painful, of the object or the motive that acts upon hissenses; or of which the idea remains with him, and is resuscitated byhis memory. In consequence, he acts necessarily; his action is theresult of the impulse he receives either from the motive, from theobject, or from the idea, which has modified his brain, or disposed hiswill. When he does not act according to this impulse, it is becausethere comes some new cause, some new motive, some new idea, whichmodifies his brain in a different manner, gives him a new impulse,determines his will in another way; by which the action of the formerimpulse is suspended: thus, the sight of an agreeable object, or itsidea, determines his will to set him in action to procure it; but if anew object or a new idea more powerfully attracts him, it gives a newdirection to his will, annihilates the effect of the former, andprevents the action by which it was to be procured. This is the mode inwhich reflection, experience, reason, necessarily arrests or suspendsthe action of man's will; without this, he would, of necessity, havefollowed the anterior impulse which carried him towards a then desirableobject. In all this he always acts according to necessary laws, fromwhich he has no means of emancipating himself.

If, when tormented with violent thirst, he figures to himself an idea,or really perceives a fountain, whose limpid streams might cool hisfeverish habit, is he sufficient master of himself to desire or not todesire the object competent to satisfy so lively a want? It will nodoubt be conceded, that it is impossible he should not be desirous tosatisfy it; but it will be said,--If at this moment it is announced tohim, the water he so ardently desires is poisoned, he will,notwithstanding his vehement thirst, abstain from drinking it; and ithas, therefore, been falsely concluded that he is a free agent. Thefact, however, is, that the motive in either case is exactly the same:his own conservation. The same necessity that determined him to drink,before he knew the water was deleterious, upon this new discovery,equally determines him not to drink; the desire of conserving himself,either annihilates or suspends the former impulse; the second motivebecomes stronger than the preceding; that is, the fear of death, or thedesire of preserving himself, necessarily prevails over the painfulsensation caused by his eagerness to drink. But, (it will be said) ifthe thirst is very parching, an inconsiderate man, without regarding thedanger, will risque swallowing the water. Nothing is gained by thisremark: in this case, the anterior impulse only regains the ascendency;he is persuaded, that life may possibly be longer preserved, or that heshall derive a greater good by drinking the poisoned water, than byenduring the torment, which, to his mind, threatens instant dissolution:thus, the first becomes the strongest, and necessarily urges him on toaction. Nevertheless, in either case, whether he partakes of the water,or whether he does not, the two actions will be equally necessary; theywill be the effect of that motive which finds itself most puissant;which consequently acts in a most coercive manner upon his will.

This example will serve to explain the whole phaenomena of the humanwill. This will, or rather the brain, finds itself in the same situationas a bowl, which although it has received an impulse that drives itforward in a straight line, is deranged in its course, whenever a force,superior to the first, obliges it to change its direction. The man whodrinks the poisoned water, appears a madman; but the actions of foolsare as necessary as those of the most prudent individuals. The motivesthat determine the voluptuary, that actuate the debauchee to risk theirhealth, are as powerful, their actions are as necessary, as those whichdecide the wise man to manage his. But, it will be insisted, thedebauchee may be prevailed on to change his conduct; this does not implythat he is a free agent; but, that motives may be found sufficientlypowerful to annihilate the effect of those that previously acted uponhim; then these new motives determine his will to the new mode ofconduct he may adopt, as necessarily as the former did to the old mode.

Man is said to _deliberate_ when the action of the will is suspended;this happens when two opposite motives act alternately upon him. Todeliberate, is to hate and to love in succession; it is to bealternately attracted and repelled; it is to be moved sometimes by onemotive, sometimes by another. Man only deliberates when he does notdistinctly understand the quality of the objects from which he receivesimpulse, or when experience has not sufficiently apprised him of theeffects, more or less remote, which his actions will produce. He wouldtake the air, but the weather is uncertain; he deliberates inconsequence; he weighs the various motives that urge his will to go outor to stay at home; he is at length determined by that motive which ismost probable; this removes his indecision, which necessarily settleshis will either to remain within or to go abroad: this motive is alwayseither the immediate or ultimate advantage he finds or thinks he findsin the action to which he is persuaded.

Man's will frequently fluctuates between two objects, of which eitherthe presence or the ideas move him alternately: he waits until he hascontemplated the objects or the ideas they have left in his brain; whichsolicit him to different actions; he then compares these objects orideas: but even in the time of deliberation, during the comparison,pending these alternatives of love and hatred, which succeed each othersometimes with the utmost rapidity, he is not a free agent for a singleinstant; the good or the evil which he believes he finds successively inthe objects, are the necessary motives of these momentary wills; of therapid motion of desire or fear that he experiences as long as hisuncertainty continues. From this it will be obvious, that deliberationis necessary; that uncertainty is necessary; that whatever part hetakes, in consequence of this deliberation, it will always necessarilybe that which he has judged, whether well or ill, is most probable toturn to his advantage.

When the soul is assailed by two motives that act alternately upon it,or modify it successively, it deliberates; the brain is in a sort ofequilibrium, accompanied with perpetual oscillations, sometimes towardsone object, sometimes towards the other, until the most forcible carriesthe point, and thereby extricates it, from this state of suspense, inwhich consists the indecision of his will. But when the brain issimultaneously assailed by causes equally strong, that move it inopposite directions; agreeable to the general law of all bodies, whenthey are struck equally by contrary powers, it stops, it is in _nisu_;it is neither capable to will nor to act; it waits until one of the twocauses has obtained sufficient force to overpower the other, todetermine its will, to attract it in such a manner that it may prevailover the efforts of the other cause.

This mechanism, so simple, so natural, suffices to demonstrate, whyuncertainty is painful; why suspense is always a violent state for man.The brain, an organ so delicate, so mobile, experiences such rapidmodifications, that it is fatigued; or when it is urged in contrarydirections, by causes equally powerful, it suffers a kind ofcompression, that prevents the activity which is suitable to thepreservation of the whole, which is necessary to procure what isadvantageous to its existence. This mechanism will also explain theirregularity, the indecision, the inconstancy of man; and account forthat conduct, which frequently appears an inexplicable mystery, whichindeed it is, under the received systems. In consulting experience, itwill be found that the soul is submitted to precisely the same physicallaws as the material body. If the will of each individual, during agiven time, was only moved by a single cause or passion, nothing wouldbe more easy than to foresee his actions; but his heart is frequentlyassailed by contrary powers, by adverse motives, which either act on himsimultaneously or in succession; then his brain, attracted in oppositedirections, is either fatigued, or else tormented by a state ofcompression, which deprives it of activity. Sometimes it is in a stateof incommodious inaction; sometimes it is the sport of the alternateshocks it undergoes. Such, no doubt, is the state in which man findshimself, when a lively passion solicits him to the commission of crime,whilst fear points out to him the danger by which it is attended: such,also, is the condition of him whom remorse, by the continued labour ofhis distracted soul, prevents from enjoying the objects he hascriminally obtained.

If the powers or causes, whether exterior or interior, acting on themind of man, tend towards opposite points, his soul, is well as allother bodies, will take a mean direction between the two; in consequenceof the violence with which his soul is urged, his condition becomessometimes so painful that his existence is troublesome: he has no longera tendency to his own peculiar conservation; he seeks after death, as asanctuary against himself--as the only remedy to his despair: it is thuswe behold men, miserable and discontented, voluntarily destroythemselves, whenever life becomes insupportable. Man is competent tocherish his existence, no longer than life holds out charms to him; whenhe is wrought upon by painful sensations, or drawn by contraryimpulsions, his natural tendency is deranged, he is under the necessityto follow a new route; this conducts him to his end, which it evendisplays to him as the most desirable good. In this manner may beexplained, the conduct of those melancholy beings, whose vicioustemperaments, whose tortured consciences, whose chagrin, whose _ennui_,sometimes determine them to renounce life.

The various powers, frequently very complicated, that act eithersuccessively or simultaneously upon the brain of man, which modify himso diversely in the different periods of his existence, are the truecauses of that obscurity in morals, of that difficulty which is found,when it is desired to unravel the concealed springs of his enigmaticalconduct. The heart of man is a labyrinth, only because it very rarelyhappens that we possess the necessary gift of judging it; from whence itwill appear, that his circumstances, his indecision, his conduct,whether ridiculous, or unexpected, are the necessary consequences of thechanges operated in him; are nothing but the effect of motives thatsuccessively determine his will; which are dependent on the frequentvariations experienced by his machine. According to these variations,the same motives have not, always, the same influence over his will, thesame objects no longer enjoy the faculty of pleasing him; histemperament has changed, either for the moment, or for ever. It followsas a consequence, that his taste, his desires, his passions, willchange; there can be no kind of uniformity in his conduct, nor anycertitude in the effects to be expected.

Choice by no means proves the free-agency of man; he only deliberateswhen he does not yet know which to choose of the many objects that movehim, he is then in an embarrassment, which does not terminate, until hiswill as decided by the greater advantage he believes be shall find inthe object he chooses, or the action he undertakes. From whence it mayhe seen that choice is necessary, because he would not determine for anobject, or for an action, if he did not believe that he should find init some direct advantage. That man should have free-agency, it wereneedful that he should he able to will or choose without motive; or,that he could prevent motives coercing his will. Action always being theeffect of his will once determined, as his will cannot be determined butby a motive, which is not in his own power, it follows that he is neverthe master of the determination of his own peculiar will; thatconsequently he never acts as a free agent. It has been believed thatman was a free agent, because he had a will with the power of choosing;but attention has not been paid to the fact, that even his will is movedby causes independent of himself, is owing to that which is inherent inhis own organization, or which belongs to the nature of the beingsacting on him. Indeed, man passes a great portion of his life withouteven willing. His will attends the motive by which it is determined. Ifhe was to render an exact account of every thing he does in the courseof each day, from rising in the morning to lying down at night, he wouldfind, that not one of his actions have been in the least voluntary; thatthey have been mechanical, habitual, determined by causes he was notable to foresee, to which he was either obliged to, yield, or with whichhe was allured to acquiesce; he would discover, that all the motives ofhis labours, of his amusements, of his discourses, of his thoughts, havebeen necessary; that they have evidently either seduced him or drawn himalong. Is he the master of willing, not to withdraw his hand from thefire when he fears it will be burnt? Or has he the power to take awayfrom fire the property which makes him fear it? Is he the master of notchoosing a dish of meat which he knows to be agreeable, or analogous tohis palate; of not preferring it to that which he knows to bedisagreeable or dangerous? It is always according to his sensations, tohis own peculiar experience, or to his suppositions, that he judges ofthings either well or ill; but whatever way be his judgment, it dependsnecessarily on his mode of feeling, whether habitual or accidental, andthe qualities he finds in the causes that move him, which exist indespite of himself.

All the causes which by his will is actuated, must act upon him in amanner sufficiently marked, to give him some sensation, some perception,some idea, whether complete or incomplete, true or false; as soon as hiswill is determined, he must have felt, either strongly or feebly; ifthis was not the case he would have determined without motive: thus, tospeak correctly, there are no causes which are truly indifferent to thewill: however faint the impulse he receives, whether on the part of theobjects themselves, or on the part of their images or ideas, as soon ashis will acts, the impulse has been competent to determine him. Inconsequence of a slight, of a feeble impulse, the will is weak, it isthis weakness of the will that is called _indifference_. His brain withdifficulty perceives the sensation, it has received; it consequentlyacts with less vigour, either to obtain or remove the object or the ideathat has modified it. If the impulse is powerful, the will is strong, itmakes him act vigorously, to obtain or to remove the object whichappears to him either very agreeable or very incommodious.

It has been believed man was a free agent, because it has been imaginedthat his soul could at will recall ideas, which sometimes suffice tocheck his most unruly desires. Thus, the idea of a remote evilfrequently prevents him from enjoying a present and actual good: thus,remembrance, which is an almost insensible, a slight modification of hisbrain, annihilates, at each instant, the real objects that act upon hiswill. But he is not master of recalling to himself his ideas atpleasure; their association is independent of him; they are arranged inhis brain, in despite of him, without his own knowledge, where they havemade an impression more or less profound; his memory itself depends uponhis organization; its fidelity depends upon the habitual or momentarystate in which he finds himself; when his will is vigorously determinedto some object or idea that excites a very lively passion in him, thoseobjects or ideas that would be able to arrest his action no longerpresent themselves to his mind; in those moments his eyes are shut tothe dangers that menace him, of which the idea ought to make himforbear; he marches forward headlong towards the object by whose imagehe is hurried on; reflection cannot operate upon him in any way; he seesnothing but the object of his desires; the salutary ideas which might beable to arrest his progress disappear, or else display themselves eithertoo faintly or too late to prevent his acting. Such is the case with allthose who, blinded by some strong passion, are not in a condition torecal to themselves those motives, of which the idea alone, in coolermoments, would be sufficient to deter them from proceeding; the disorderin which they are, prevents their judging soundly; render them incapableof foreseeing the consequence of their actions; precludes them fromapplying to their experience; from making use of their reason; naturaloperations, which suppose a justness in the manner of associating theirideas; but to which their brain is then not more competent, inconsequence of the momentary delirium it suffers, than their hand is towrite whilst they are taking violent exercise.

Man's mode of thinking is necessarily determined by his manner of being;it must, therefore, depend on his natural organization, and themodification his system receives independently of his will. From this weare obliged to conclude, that his thoughts, his reflections, his mannerof viewing things, of feeling, of judging, of combining ideas, isneither voluntary nor free. In a word, that his soul is neither mistressof the motion excited in it, nor of representing to itself, when wanted,those images or ideas that are capable of counterbalancing the impulseit receives. This is the reason why man, when in a passion, ceases toreason; at that moment reason is as impossible to be heard, as it isduring an extacy, or in a fit of drunkenness. The wicked are never morethan men who are either drunk or mad: if they reason, it is not untiltranquillity is re-established in their machine; then, and not tillthen, the tardy ideas that present themselves to their mind, enable themto see the consequence of their actions, and give birth to ideas, thatbring on them that trouble, which is designated _shame, regret,remorse_.

The errors of philosophers on the free-agency of man, have arisen fromtheir regarding his will as the _primum mobile_, the original motive ofhis actions; for want of recurring back, they have not perceived themultiplied, the complicated causes, which, independently of him, givemotion to the will itself, or which dispose and modify his brain, whilsthe himself is purely passive in the motion he receives. Is he the masterof desiring or not desiring an object that appears desirable to him?Without doubt it will be answered, No: but he is the master of resistinghis desire, if he reflects on the consequences. But, I ask, is hecapable of reflecting on these consequences when his soul is hurriedalong by a very lively passion, which entirely depends upon his naturalorganization, and the causes by which he is modified? Is it in his powerto add to these consequences all the weight necessary to counterbalancehis desire? Is he the master of preventing the qualities which render anobject desirable from residing in it? I shall be told, he ought to havelearned to resist his passions; to contract a habit of putting a curb onhis desires. I agree to it without any difficulty: but in reply, I againask, Is his nature susceptible of this modification? Does his boilingblood, his unruly imagination, the igneous fluid that circulates in hisveins, permit him to make, enable him to apply true experience in themoment when it is wanted? And, even when his temperament has capacitatedhim, has his education, the examples set before him, the ideas withwhich he has been inspired in early life, been suitable to make himcontract this habit of repressing his desires? Have not all these thingsrather contributed to induce him to seek with avidity, to make himactually desire those objects which you say he ought to resist.

The _ambitious man_ cries out,--You will have me resist my passion, buthave they not unceasingly repeated to me, that rank, honours, power, arethe most desirable advantages in life? Have I not seen my fellow-citizens envy them--the nobles of my country sacrifice every thing toobtain them? In the society in which I live, am I not obliged to feel,that if I am deprived of these advantages, I must expect to languish incontempt, to cringe under the rod of oppression?

The _miser_ says,--You forbid me to love money, to seek after the meansof acquiring it: alas! does not every thing tell me, that in this worldmoney is the greatest blessing; that it is amply sufficient to render mehappy? In the country I inhabit, do I not see all my fellow-citizenscovetous of riches? but do I not also witness that they are littlescrupulous in the means of obtaining wealth? As soon as they areenriched by the means which you censure, are they not cherished,considered, and respected? By what authority, then, do you object to myamassing treasure? what right have you to prevent my using means, whichalthough you call them sordid and criminal, I see approved by thesovereign? Will you have me renounce my happiness?

The _voluptuary_ argues,--You pretend that I should resist my desires;but was I the maker of my own temperament, which unceasingly invites meto pleasure? You call my pleasures disgraceful; but in the country inwhich I live, do I not witness the most dissipated men enjoying the mostdistinguished rank? Do I not behold, that no one is ashamed of adulterybut the husband it has outraged? do not I see men making trophies oftheir debaucheries, boasting of their libertinism, rewarded, withapplause?

The _choleric_ man vociferates,--You advise me to put a curb on mypassions; to resist the desire of avenging myself: but can I conquer mynature? Can I alter the received opinions of the world? Shall I not befor ever disgraced, infallibly dishonoured in society, if I do not washout, in the blood of my fellow-creature, the injuries I have received?

The _zealous enthusiast_ exclaims,--You recommend to me mildness, youadvise me to be tolerant, to be indulgent to the opinions of my fellow-men; but is not my temperament violent? Do I not ardently love my God?Do they not assure me that zeal is pleasing to him; that sanguinaryinhuman persecutors have been his friends? That those who do not thinkas I do are his enemies? I wish to render myself acceptable in hissight, I therefore adopt the means you reprobate.

In short, the actions of man are never free; they are always thenecessary consequence of his temperament, of the received ideas, of thenotions, either true or false, which he has formed to himself ofhappiness: of his opinions, strengthened by example, forfeited byeducation, consolidated by daily experience. So many crimes arewitnessed on the earth, only because every thing conspires to render manvicious, to make him criminal; very frequently, the superstitions he hasadopted, his government, his education, the examples set before him,irresistibly drive him on to evil: under these circumstances moralitypreaches virtue to him in vain. In those societies where vice isesteemed, where crime is crowned, where venality is constantlyrecompenced, where the most dreadful disorders are punished, only inthose who are too weak to enjoy the privilege of committing them withimpunity; the practice of virtue is considered nothing more than apainful sacrifice of fancied happiness. Such societies chastise, in thelower orders, those excesses which they respect in the higher ranks; andfrequently have the injustice to condemn those in penalty of death, whompublic prejudices, maintained by constant example, have renderedcriminal.

Man, then, is not a free agent in any one instant of his life; he isnecessarily guided in each step by those advantages, whether real orfictitious, that he attaches to the objects by which his passions areroused: these passions themselves are necessary in a being who,unceasingly tends towards his own happiness; their energy is necessary,since that depends on his temperament; his temperament is necessary,because it depends on the physical elements which enter into hiscomposition; the modification of this temperament is necessary, as it isthe infallible result, the inevitable consequence of the impulse hereceives from the incessant action of moral and physical beings.

In despite of these proofs of the want of free-agency in man, so clearto unprejudiced minds, it will, perhaps, be insisted upon with no smallfeeling of triumph, that if it be proposed to any one to move or not tomove his hand, an action in the number of those called _indifferent_, heevidently appears to be the master of choosing; from which it isconcluded, evidence has been offered of his free-agency. The reply is,this example is perfectly simple; man in performing some action which heis resolved on doing, does not by any means prove his free-agency: thevery desire of displaying this quality, excited by the dispute, becomesa necessary motive which decides his will either for the one or theother of these actions: what deludes him in this instance, or that whichpersuades him he is a free agent at this moment, is, that he does notdiscern the true motive which sets him in action; which is neither morenor less than the desire of convincing his opponent: if in the heat ofthe dispute he insists and asks, "Am I not the master of throwing myselfout of the window?" I shall answer him, no; that whilst he preserves hisreason, there is not even a probability that the desire of proving hisfree-agency, will become a motive sufficiently powerful, to make himsacrifice his life to the attempt; if, notwithstanding this, to prove heis a free agent, he should actually precipitate himself from the window,it would not be a sufficient warrantry to conclude he acted freely, butrather that it was the violence of his temperament which spurred him onto this folly. Madness is a state that depends upon the heat of theblood, not upon the will. A fanatic or a hero, braves death asnecessarily as a more phlegmatic man or a coward flies from it. Thereis, in point of fact, no difference between the man who is cast out ofthe window by another, and the man who throws himself out of it, exceptthat the impulse in the first instance comes immediately from without,whilst that which determines the fall in the second case, springs fromwithin his own peculiar machine, having its more remote cause alsoexterior. When Mutius Scaevola held his hand in the fire, he was as muchacting under the influence of necessity, caused by interior motives,that urged him to this strange action, as if his arm had been held bystrong men; pride, despair, the desire of braving his enemy, a wish toastonish him, an anxiety to intimidate him, &c. were the invisiblechains that held his hand bound to the fire. The love of glory,enthusiasm for their country, in like manner, caused Codrus and Deciusto devote themselves for their fellow citizens. The Indian Calanus andthe philosopher Peregrinus were equally obliged to burn themselves, bythe desire of exciting the astonishment of the Grecian assembly.

It is said that free-agency is the absence of those obstacles competentto oppose themselves to the actions of man, or to the exercise of hisfaculties: it is pretended that he is a free agent, whenever, making useof these faculties, he produces the effect he has proposed to himself.In reply to this reasoning, it is sufficient to consider that it in nowise depends upon himself to place or remove the obstacles that eitherdetermine or resist him; the motive that causes his action is no more inhis own power than the obstacle that impedes him, whether this obstacleor motive be within his own machine or exterior of his person: he is notmaster of the thought presented to his mind which determines his will;this thought is excited by some cause independent of himself.

To be undeceived on the system of his free-agency, man has simply torecur to the motive by which his will is determined, he will always findthis motive is out of his own controul. It is said, that in consequenceof an idea to which the mind gives birth, man acts freely if heencounters no obstacle. But the question is, what gives birth to thisidea in his brain? has he the power either to prevent it from presentingitself, or from renewing itself in his brain? Does not this idea dependeither upon objects that strike him exteriorly and in despite ofhimself, or upon causes that without his knowledge act within himselfand modify his brain? Can he prevent his eyes, cast without design uponany object whatever, from giving him an idea of this object, from movinghis brain? He is not more master of the obstacles; they are thenecessary effects of either interior or exterior causes, which alwaysact according to their given properties. A man insults a coward, who isnecessarily irritated against his insulter, but his will cannot vanquishthe obstacle that cowardice places to the object of his desire, whichis, to resent the insult; because his natural conformation, which doesnot depend upon himself, prevents his having courage. In this case thecoward is insulted in despite of himself, and against his will isobliged patiently to brook the insult he has received.

The partizans of the system of free-agency appear ever to haveconfounded constraint with necessity. Man believes he acts as a freeagent, every time he does not see any thing that places obstacles to hisactions; he does not perceive that the motive which causes him to willis always necessary, is ever independent of himself. A prisoner loadedwith chains is compelled to remain in prison, but he is not a freeagent, he is not able to resist the desire to emancipate himself; hischains prevent him from acting, but they do not prevent him fromwilling; he would save himself if they would loose his fetters, but hewould not save himself as a free agent, fear or the idea of punishmentwould be sufficient motives for his action.

Man may therefore cease to be restrained, without, for that reason,becoming a free agent: in whatever manner he acts, he will actnecessarily; according to motives by which he shall be determined. Hemay be compared to a heavy body, that finds itself arrested in itsdescent by any obstacle whatever: take away this obstacle, it willgravitate or continue to fall; but who shall say this dense body is freeto fall or not? Is not its descent the necessary effect of its ownspecific gravity? The virtuous Socrates submitted to the laws of hiscountry, although they were unjust; notwithstanding the doors of hisgaol were left open to him he would not save himself; but in this he didnot act as a free agent; the invisible chains of opinion, the secretlove of decorum, the inward respect for the laws, even when they wereiniquitous, the fear of tarnishing his glory, kept him in his prison:they were motives sufficiently powerful, with this enthusiast forvirtue, to induce him to wait death with tranquillity; it was not in hispower to save himself, because he could find no potential motive tobring him to depart, even for an instant, from those principles to whichhis mind was accustomed.

Man, says he, frequently acts against his inclination, from whence hehas falsely concluded he is a free agent; when he appears to actcontrary to his inclination, he is determined to it by some motivesufficiently efficacious to vanquish this inclination. A sick man, witha view to his cure, arrives at conquering his repugnance to the mostdisgusting remedies: the fear of pain, the dread of death, then becomenecessary and intelligent motives; consequently, this sick man cannot besaid, with truth, by any means, to act freely.

When it is said, that man is not a free agent, it is not pretended tocompare him to a body moved by a simple impulsive cause: he containswithin himself causes inherent to his existence; he is moved by aninterior organ, which has its own peculiar laws; which is itselfnecessarily determined, in consequence of ideas formed from perceptions,resulting from sensations, which it receives from exterior objects. Asthe mechanism of these sensations, of these perceptions, and the mannerthey engrave ideas on the brain of man, are not known to him, because heis unable to unravel all these motions; because he cannot perceive thechain of operations in his soul, or the motive-principle that actswithin him, he supposes himself a free agent; which, literallytranslated, signifies that he moves himself by himself; that hedetermines himself without cause; when he rather ought to say, he isignorant how or for why he acts in the manner he does. It is true thesoul enjoys an activity peculiar to itself, but it is equally certainthat this activity would never be displayed if some motive or some causedid not put it in a condition to exercise itself, at least it will notbe pretended that the soul is able either to love or to hate withoutbeing moved, without knowing the objects, without having some idea oftheir qualities. Gunpowder has unquestionably a particular activity, butthis activity will never display itself, unless fire be applied to it;this, however, immediately sets in motion.

It is the great complication of motion in man, it is the variety of hisaction, it is the multiplicity of causes that move him, whethersimultaneously or in continual succession, that persuades him he is afree agent: if all his motions were simple, if the causes that move himdid not confound themselves with each other, if they were distinct, ifhis machine was less complicated, he would perceive that all his actionswere necessary, because he would be enabled to recur instantly to thecause that made him act. A man who should be always obliged to gotowards the west would always go on that side, but he would feelextremely well, that in so going he was not a free agent: if he hadanother sense, as his actions or his motion augmented by a sixth wouldbe still more varied, much more complicated, he would believe himselfstill more a free agent than he does with his five senses.

It is, then, for want of recurring to the causes that move him, for wantof being able to analyse, from not being competent to decompose thecomplicated motion of his machine, that man believes himself a freeagent; it is only upon his own ignorance that he founds the profound yetdeceitful notion he has of his free-agency, that he builds thoseopinions which he brings forward as a striking proof of his pretendedfreedom of action. If, for a short time, each man was willing to examinehis own peculiar actions, to search out their true motives, to discovertheir concatenation, he would remain convinced that the sentiment he hasof his natural free-agency is a chimera that must speedily be destroyedby experience.

Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the multiplicity, thediversity of the causes which continually act upon man, frequentlywithout even his knowledge, render it impossible, or at least extremelydifficult, for him to recur to the true principles of his own peculiaractions, much less the actions of others; they frequently depend uponcauses so fugitive, so remote from their effects, and which,superficially examined, appear to have so little analogy, so slender arelation with them, that it requires singular sagacity to bring theminto light. This is what renders the study of the moral man a task ofsuch difficulty; this is the reason why his heart is an abyss, of whichit is frequently impossible for him to fathom the depth. He is, then,obliged to content himself with a knowledge of the general and necessarylaws by which the human heart is regulated; for the individuals of hisown species these laws are pretty nearly the same, they vary only inconsequence of the organization that is peculiar to each, and of themodification it undergoes; this, however, is not, cannot be rigorouslythe same in any two. It suffices to know that by his essence man tendsto conserve himself, to render his existence happy: this granted,whatever may be his actions, if he recurs back to this first principle,to this general, this necessary tendency of his will, he never can bedeceived with regard to his motives. Man, without doubt, for want ofcultivating reason, being destitute of experience, frequently deceiveshimself upon the means of arriving at this end; sometimes the means heemploys are unpleasant to his fellows, because they are prejudicial totheir interests; or else those of which he avails himself appearirrational, because they remove him from the end to which he wouldapproximate: but whatever may be these means, they have alwaysnecessarily and invariably for object, either an existing or imaginaryhappiness; are directed to preserve himself in a state analogous to hismode of existence, to his manner of feeling, to his way of thinking;whether durable or transitory. It is from having mistaken this truth,that the greater number of moral philosophers have made rather theromance, than the history of the human heart; they have attributed theactions of man to fictitious causes; at least they have not sought outthe necessary motives of his conduct. Politicians and legislators havebeen in the same state of ignorance; or else impostors have found itmuch shorter to employ imaginary motive-powers, than those which reallyhave existence: they have rather chosen to make man wander out of hisway, to make him tremble under incommodious phantoms, than guide him tovirtue by the direct road to happiness; notwithstanding the conformityof the latter with the natural desires of his heart. So true it is, that_error can never possibly be useful, to the human species_.

However this may be, man either sees or believes he sees, much moredistinctly, the necessary relation of effects with their causes innatural philosophy than in the human heart; at least he sees in theformer sensible causes constantly produce sensible effects, ever thesame, when the circumstances are alike. After this, he hesitates not tolook upon physical effects as necessary, whilst he refuses toacknowledge necessity in the acts of the human will; these he has,without any just foundation, attributed to a motive-power that actsindependently by its own peculiar energy, that is capable of modifyingitself without the concurrence of exterior causes, and which isdistinguished from all material or physical beings. _Agriculture_ isfounded upon the assurance afforded by experience, that the earth,cultivated and sown in a certain manner, when it has otherwise therequisite qualities, will furnish grain, fruit, and flowers, eithernecessary for subsistence or pleasing to the senses. If things wereconsidered without prejudice, it would be perceived, that in moralseducation is nothing more than _the agriculture of the mind_; that likethe earth, by reason of its natural disposition, of the culture bestowedupon it, of the seeds with which it is sown, of the seasons, more orless favorable, that conduct it to maturity, we may be assured that thesoul will produce either virtue or vice; _moral fruit_ that will beeither salubrious for man or baneful to society. _Morals_ is the scienceof the relations that subsist between the minds, the wills, and theactions of men; in the same manner that _geometry_ is the science of therelations that are found between bodies. Morals would be a chimera, itwould have no certain principles, if it was not founded upon theknowledge of the motives which must necessarily have an influence uponthe human will, and which must necessarily determine the actions ofhuman beings.

If in the moral as well as in the physical world, a cause of which theaction is not interrupted be necessarily followed by a given effect, itflows consecutively that a _reasonable education_, grafted upon truth,founded upon wise laws,--that honest principles instilled during youth,virtuous examples continually held forth, esteem attached solely tomerit, recompense awarded to none but good actions, contempt regularlyvisiting vice, shame following falsehood as its shadow, rigorouschastisements applied without distinction to crime, are causes thatwould necessarily act on the will of man; that would determine thegreater number of his species to exhibit virtue, to love it for its ownsake, to seek after it as the most desirable good, as the surest road tothe happiness he so ardently desires. But if, on the contrary,superstition, politics, example, public opinion, all labour tocountenance wickedness, to train man viciously; if, instead of fanninghis virtues, they stifle good principles; if, instead of directing hisstudies to his advantage, they render his education either useless orunprofitable; if this education itself, instead of grounding him invirtue, only inoculates him with vice; if, instead of inculcatingreason, it imbues him with prejudice; if, instead of making himenamoured of truth, it furnishes him with false notions; if, instead ofstoring his mind with just ideas drawn from experience, it fills himwith dangerous opinions; if, instead of fostering mildness andforbearance, it kindles in his breast only those passions which areincommodious to himself and hurtful to others; it must be of necessity,that the will of the greater number shall determine them to evil; shallrender them unworthy, make them baneful to society. Many authors haveacknowledged the importance of a good education, that youth was theseason to feed the human heart with wholesome diet; but they have notfelt, that a good education is incompatible, nay, impossible, with thesuperstition of man, since this commences with giving his mind a falsebias: that it is equally inconsistent with arbitrary government, becausethis always dreads lest he should become enlightened, and is eversedulous to render him servile, mean, contemptible, and cringing; thatit is incongruous with laws that are not founded in equity, that arefrequently bottomed on injustice; that it cannot obtain with thosereceived customs that are opposed to good sense; that it cannot existwhilst public opinion is unfavourable to virtue; above all, that it isabsurd to expect it from incapable instructors, from masters with weakminds, who have only the ability to infuse into their scholars thosefalse ideas with which they are themselves infected. Here, withoutdoubt, is the real source from whence springs that universal corruption,that wide-spreading depravity, of which moralists, with great justice,so loudly complain; without, however, pointing out those causes of theevil, which are true as they are necessary: instead of this, they searchfor it in human nature, say it is corrupt, blame man for loving himself,and for seeking after his own happiness, insist that he must havesupernatural assistance, some marvellous interference, to enable him tobecome good: this is a very prejudicial doctrine for him, it is directlysubversive of his true happiness; by teaching him to hold himself incontempt, it tends necessarily to discourage him; it either makes himsluggish, or drives him to despair whilst waiting for this grace: is itnot easy to be perceived, that he would always have it if he was welleducated; if he was honestly governed? There cannot well exist a wilderor a stranger system of morals, than that of the theologians whoattribute all moral evil to an original sin, and all moral good to thepardon of it. It ought not to excite surprise if such a system is of noefficacy; what can reasonably be the result of such an hypothesis? Yet,notwithstanding the supposed, the boasted free-agency of man, it isinsisted that nothing less than the Author of Nature himself isnecessary to destroy the wicked desires of his heart: but, alas! nopower whatever is found sufficiently efficacious to resist those unhappypropensities, which, under the fatal constitution of things, the mostvigorous motives, as before observed, are continually infusing into thewill of man; no agency seems competent to turn the course of thatunhappy direction these are perpetually giving to the stream of hisnatural passions. He is, indeed, incessantly exhorted to resist thesepassions, to stifle them, and to root them out of his heart; but is itnot evident they are necessary to his welfare? Can it not be perceivedthey are inherent in his nature? Does not experience prove them to beuseful to his conservation, since they have for object, only to avoidthat which may be injurious to him; to procure that which may beadvantageous to his mode of existence? In short, is it not easy to beseen, that these passions, well directed, that is to say, carriedtowards objects that are truly useful, that are really interesting tohimself, which embrace the happiness of others, would necessarilycontribute to the substantial, to the permanent well-being of society?Theologians themselves have felt, they have acknowledged the necessityof the passions: many of the fathers of the church have broached thisdoctrine; among the rest Father Senault has written a book expressly onthe subject: the passions of man are like fire, at once necessary to thewants of life, suitable to ameliorate the condition of humanity, andequally capable of producing the most terrible ravages, the mostfrightful devastation.

Every thing becomes an impulse to the will; a single word frequentlysuffices to modify a man for the whole course of his life, to decide forever his propensities; an infant who has burned his finger by havingapproached it too near the flame of a lighted taper, is warned fromthence, that he ought to abstain from indulging a similar temptation; aman, once punished and despised for having committed a dishonest action,is not often tempted to continue so unfavourable a course. Underwhatever point of man is considered, he never acts but after the impulsegiven to his will, whether it be by the will of others, or by moreperceptible physical causes. The particular organization decides thenature of the impulse; souls act upon souls that are analogous;inflamed, fiery imaginations, act with facility upon strong passions;upon imaginations easy to be inflamed, the surprising progress ofenthusiasm; the hereditary propagation of superstition; the transmissionof religious errors from race to race, the excessive ardour with whichman seizes on the marvellous, are effects as necessary as those whichresult from the action and re-action of bodies.

In despite of the gratuitous ideas which man has formed to himself onhis pretended free-agency; in defiance of the illusions of this supposeintimate sense, which, contrary to his experience, persuades him that heis master of his will,--all his institutions are really founded uponnecessity: on this, as on a variety of other occasions, practice throwsaside speculation. Indeed, if it was not believed that certain motivesembraced the power requisite to determine the will of man, to arrest theprogress of his passions, to direct them towards an end, to modify him;of what use would be the faculty of speech? What benefit could arisefrom education itself? What does education achieve, save give the firstimpulse to the human will, make man contract habits, oblige him topersist in them, furnish him with motives, whether true or false, to actafter a given manner? When the father either menaces his son withpunishment, or promises him a reward, is he not convinced these thingswill act upon his will? What does legislation attempt, except it be topresent to the citizens of a state those motives which are supposednecessary to determine them to perform some actions that are consideredworthy; to abstain from committing others that are looked upon asunworthy? What is the object of morals, if it be not to shew man thathis interest exacts he should suppress the momentary ebullition of hispassions, with a view to promote a more certain happiness, a morelasting well-being, than can possibly result from the gratification ofhis transitory desires? Does not the religion of all countries supposethe human race, together with the entire of Nature, submitted to theirresistible will of a necessary being, who regulates their conditionafter the eternal laws of immutable wisdom? Is not God the absolutemaster of their destiny? Is it not this divine being who chooses andrejects? The anathemas fulminated by religion, the promises it holdsforth, are they not founded upon the idea of the effects they willnecessarily produce upon mankind? Is not man brought into existencewithout his own knowledge? Is he not obliged to play a part against hiswill? Does not either his happiness or his misery depend on the part heplays?

All religion has been evidently founded upon _Fatalism_. Among theGreeks they supposed men were punished for their necessary faults, asmay be seen in Orestes, in Oedipus, &c. who only committed crimespredicted by the oracles. It is rather singular that the theologicaldefenders of the doctrine of _free-agency_, which they endeavour tooppose to that of _predestination_,--which according to them isirreconcileable with _Christianity_, inasmuch as it is a false anddangerous system,--should not have been aware that the doctrines of _thefall of angels, original sin, the small number of the elect, the systemof grace, &c._ were most incontestibly supporting, by the most cogentarguments, a _true system of fatalism_.

_Education_, then, is only necessity shewn to children: _legislation_ isnecessity shewn to the members of the body politic: _morals_ is thenecessity of the relations subsisting between men, shewn to reasonablebeings: in short, man grants _necessity_ in every thing for which hebelieves he has certain, unerring experience: that of which he does notcomprehend the necessary connection of causes with their effects hestyles _probability_: he would not act as he does, if he was notconvinced, or, at least, if he did not presume he was, that certaineffects will necessarily follow his actions. The _moralist_ preachesreason, because he believes it necessary to man: the _philosopher_writes, because he believes truth must, sooner or later, prevail overfalsehood: _tyrants_ and _fanatical priests_ necessarily hate truth,despise reason, because they believe them prejudicial to theirinterests: the _sovereign_, who strives to terrify crime by the severityof his laws, but who nevertheless, from motives of state policysometimes renders it useful and even necessary to his purposes, presumesthe motives he employs will be sufficient to keep his subjects withinbounds. All reckon equally upon the power or upon the necessity of themotives they make use of; each individual flatters himself, either withor without reason, that these motives will have an influence on theconduct of mankind. The education of man is commonly so defective, soinefficacious, so little calculated to promote the end he has in view,because it is regulated by prejudice: even when this education is good,it is but too often speedily counteracted, by almost every thing thattakes place in society. Legislation and politics are very frequentlyiniquitous, and serve no better purpose than to kindle passions in thebosom of man, which once set afloat, they are no longer competent torestrain. The great art of the moralist should be, to point out to man,to convince those who are entrusted with the sacred office of regulatinghis will, that their interests are identified; that their reciprocalhappiness depends upon the harmony of their passions; that the safety,the power, the duration of empires, necessarily depend on the good sensediffused among the individual members; on the truth of the notionsinculcated in the mind of the citizens, on the moral goodness that issown in their hearts, on the virtues that are cultivated in theirbreasts; religion should not be admissible, unless it truly fortified,unless it really strengthened these motives. But in the miserable stateinto which error has plunged a considerable portion of the humanspecies, man, for the most part, is seduced to be wicked: he injures hisfellow-creature as a matter of conscience, because the strongest motivesare held out to him to be persecuting; because his institutions invitehim to the commission of evil, under the lure of promoting his ownimmediate happiness. In most countries superstition renders him auseless being, makes him an abject slave, causes him to tremble underits terrors, or else turns him into a furious fanatic, who is at oncecruel, intolerant, and inhuman: in a great number of states arbitrarypower crushes him, obliges him to become a cringing sycophant, rendershim completely vicious: in those despotic states the law rarely visitscrime with punishment, except in those who are too feeble to oppose itscourse? or when it has become incapable of restraining the violentexcesses to which a bad government gives birth. In short, rationaleducation is neglected; a prudent culture of the human mind is despised;it depends, but too frequently, upon bigotted, superstitious priests,who are interested in deceiving man, and who are sometimes impostors; orelse upon parents or masters without understanding, who are devoid ofmorals, who impress on the ductile mind of their scholars those viceswith which they are themselves tormented; who transmit to them the falseopinions, which they believe they have an interest in making them adopt.

All this proves the necessity of falling back to man's original errors,and recurring to the primitive source of his wanderings, if it beseriously intended to furnish him with suitable remedies for suchenormous maladies: it is useless to dream of correcting his mistakes, ofcuring him of his depravity, until the true causes that move his willare unravelled; until more real, more beneficial, more certain motivesare substituted for those which are found so inefficacious; which proveso dangerous both to society and to himself. It is for those who guidethe human will, who regulate the condition of nations, who hold the realhappiness of man in their grasp, to seek after these motives,--withwhich reason will readily furnish them--which experience will enablethem to apply with success: even a good book, by touching the heart of agreat prince, may become a very powerful cause that shall necessarilyhave an influence over the conduct of a whole people, and decide uponthe felicity of a portion of the human race.

From all that has been advanced in this chapter, it results, that in noone moment of his existence man is a free agent: he is not the architectof his own conformation; this he holds from Nature, he has no controulover his own ideas, or over the modification of his brain; these are dueto causes, that, in despite of him, very frequently without his ownknowledge, unceasingly act upon him; he is not the master of not lovingthat which he finds amiable; of not coveting that which appears to himdesirable; he is not capable of refusing to deliberate, when he isuncertain of the effects certain objects will produce upon him; hecannot avoid choosing that which he believes will be most advantageousto him: in the moment when his will is determined by his choice, he isnot competent to act otherwise than he does: in what instance, then, ishe the master of his own actions? In what moment is he a free agent?

That which a man is about to do is always a consequence of that which hehas been--of that which he is--of that which he has done up to themoment of the action: his total and actual existence, considered underall its possible circumstances, contains the sum of all the motives tothe action he is about to commit; this is a principle, the truth ofwhich no thinking, being will be able to refuse accrediting: his life isa series of necessary moments; his conduct, whether good or bad,virtuous or vicious, useful or prejudicial, either to himself or toothers, is a concatenation of action, a chain of causes and effects, asnecessary as all the moments of his existence. To _live_, is to exist ina necessary mode during the points of its duration, which succeed eachother necessarily: to _will_, is to acquiesce or not in remaining suchas he is: to be _free_, is to yield to the necessary motives that hecarries within himself.

If he understood the play of his organs, if he was able to recal tohimself all the impulsions they have received, all the modificationsthey have undergone, all the effects they have produced, he wouldperceive, that all his actions are submitted to that _fatality_ whichregulates his own particular system, as it does the entire system of theuniverse: no one effect in him, any more than in Nature, produce itselfby _chance_; this, as has been before proved, is a word void of sense.All that passes in him, all that is done by him, as well as all thathappens in Nature, or that is attributed to her, is derived fromnecessary laws, which produce necessary effects; from whence necessarilyflow others.

_Fatality_ is the eternal, the immutable, the necessary orderestablished in Nature, or the indispensible connection of causes thatact with the effects they operate. Conforming to this order, heavybodies fall, light bodies rise; that which is analogous in matter,reciprocally attracts; that which is heterogeneous, mutually repels; mancongregates himself in society, modifies each his fellow, becomes eithervirtuous or wicked; either contributes to his mutual happiness, orreciprocates his misery; either loves his neighbour, or hates hiscompanion necessarily; according to the manner in which the one actsupon the other. From whence it may be seen, that the same necessitywhich regulates the physical, also regulates the moral world: in whichevery thing is in consequence submitted to fatality. Man, in runningover, frequently without his own knowledge, often in despite of himself,the route which Nature has marked out for him, resembles a swimmer whois obliged to follow the current that carries him along; he believeshimself a free agent, because he sometimes consents, sometimes does notconsent, to glide with the stream; which, notwithstanding, alwayshurries him forward; he believes himself the master of his condition,because he is obliged to use his arms under the fear of sinking.

The false ideas he has formed to himself upon free-agency, are ingeneral thus founded: there are certain events which he judges_necessary_; either because he sees they are effects that areconstantly, are invariably linked to certain causes, which nothing seemsto prevent; or because he believes he has discovered the chain of causesand effects that is put in play to produce those events: whilst hecontemplates as _contingent_, other events, of whose causes he isignorant; the concatenation of which he does not perceive; with whosemode of acting he is unacquainted: but in Nature, where every thing isconnected by one common bond, there exists no effect without a cause. Inthe moral as well as in the physical world, every thing that happens isa necessary consequence of causes, either visible or concealed; whichare, of necessity, obliged to act after their peculiar essences. _Inman, free-agency is nothing more than necessity contained withinhimself_.

CHAP. XII.

_An examination of the Opinion which pretends that the System ofFatalism is dangerous._

For a being whose essence obliges him to have a constant tendency to hisown conservation, to continually seek to render himself happy,experience is indispensible: without it he cannot discover truth, whichis nothing more, as has been already said, than a knowledge of theconstant relations which subsist between man, and those objects that actupon him; according to his experience he denominates those thatcontribute to his permanent welfare useful and salutary; those thatprocure him pleasure, more or less durable, he calls agreeable. Truthitself becomes the object of his desires, only when he believes it isuseful; he dreads it, whenever he presumes it will injure him. But hastruth the power to injure him? Is it possible that evil can result toman from a correct understanding of the relations he has with otherbeings? Can it be true, that he can be harmed by becoming acquaintedwith those things, of which, for his own happiness, he is interested inhaving a knowledge? No: unquestionably not. It is upon its utility thattruth founds its worth; upon this that it builds its rights; sometimesit may be disagreeable to individuals--it may even appear contrary totheir interests--but it will ever be beneficial to them in the end; itwill always be useful to the whole human species; it will eternallybenefit the great bulk of mankind; whose interests must for ever remaindistinct from those of men, who, duped by their own peculiar passions,believe their advantage consists in plunging others into error.

_Utility_, then, is the touchstone of his systems, the test of hisopinions, the criterion of the actions of man; it is the standard of theesteem, the measure of the love he owes to truth itself: the most usefultruths are the most estimable: those truths which are most interestingfor his species, he styles _eminent_; those of which the utility limitsitself to the amusement of some individuals who have not correspondentideas, similar modes of feeling, wants analogous to his own, he eitherdisdains, or else calls them _barren_.

It is according to this standard, that the principles laid down in thiswork, ought to be judged. Those who are acquainted with the immensechain of mischief produced on the earth by erroneous systems ofsuperstition, will acknowledge the importance of opposing to themsystems more accordant with truth, schemes drawn from Nature, sciencesfounded on experience. Those who are, or believe they are, interested inmaintaining the established errors, will contemplate, with horror, thetruths here presented to them: in short, those infatuated mortals, whodo not feel, or who only feel very faintly, the enormous load of miserybrought upon mankind by metaphysical speculation; the heavy yoke ofslavery under which prejudice makes him groan, will regard all ourprinciples as useless; or, at most, as sterile truths, calculated toamuse the idle hours of a few speculators.

No astonishment, therefore, need be excited at the various judgmentsformed by man: his interests never being the same, any more than hisnotions of utility, he condemns or disdains every thing that does notaccord with his own peculiar ideas. This granted, let us examine, if inthe eyes of the disinterested man, who is not entangled by prejudice--who is sensible to the happiness of his species--who delights in truth--the _doctrine of fatalism_ be useful or dangerous? Let us see if it is abarren speculation, that his not any influence upon the felicity of thehuman race? At has been already shewn, that it will furnish morals withefficacious arguments, with real motives to determine the will, supplypolitics with the true lever to raise the proper activity in the mind ofman. It will also be seen that it serves to explain in a simple mannerthe mechanism of man's actions; to develope in an easy way the arcana ofthe most striking phenomena of the human heart: on the other hand, ifhis ideas are only the result of unfruitful speculations, they cannotinterest the happiness of the human species. Whether he believes himselfa free agent, or whether he acknowledges the necessity of things, healways equally follows the desires imprinted on his soul; which are topreserve his existence and render himself happy. A rational education,honest habits, wise systems, equitable laws, rewards uprightlydistributed, punishments justly inflicted, will conduct man to happinessby making him virtuous; while thorny speculations, filled withdifficulties, can at most only have an influence over personsunaccustomed to think.

After these reflections, it will be very easy to remove the difficultiesthat are unceasingly opposed to the system of fatalism, which so manypersons, blinded by their superstitious prejudices, are desirous to haveconsidered as dangerous--as deserving of punishment--as calculated todisturb public tranquility--as tending to unchain the passions--toundermine the opinions man ought to have; and to confound his ideas ofvice and of virtue.

The opposers of necessity, say, that if all the actions of man arenecessary, no right whatever exists to punish bad ones, or even to heangry with those who commit them: that nothing ought to be imputed tothem; that the laws would he unjust if they should decree punishment fornecessary actions; in short, that under this system man could neitherhave merit nor demerit. In reply, it may he argued, that, to impute anaction to any one, is to attribute that action to him; to acknowledgehim for the author: thus, when even an action was supposed to be theeffect of an agent, and that agent _necessity_, the imputation wouldlie: the merit or demerit, that is ascribed to an action are ideasoriginating in the effects, whether favourable or pernicious, thatresult to those who experience its operation; when, therefore, it shouldbe conceded, that the agent was necessity, it is not less certain, thatthe action would be either good or bad; estimable or contemptible, tothose who must feel its influence; in short that it would be capable ofeither eliciting their love, or exciting their anger. Love and anger aremodes of existence, suitable to modify, beings of the human species:when, therefore, man irritates himself against his fellow, he intends toexcite his fear, or even to punish him, in order to deter him fromcommitting that which is displeasing to him. Moreover his anger isnecessary; it is the result of his Nature; the consequence of histemperament. The painful sensation produced by a stone that falls on thearm, does not displease the less, because it comes from a cause deprivedof will; which acts by the necessity of its Nature. In contemplating manas acting necessarily, it is impossible to avoid distinguishing thatmode of action or being which is agreeable, which elicits approbation,from that which is afflicting, which irritates, which Nature obliges himto blame and to prevent. From this it will he seen, that the system offatalism, does not in any manner change the actual state of things, andis by no means calculated to confound man's ideas of virtue and vice.

Man's Nature always revolts against that which opposes it: there are menso choleric, that they infuriate themselves even against insensible andinanimate objects; reflection on their own impotence to modify theseobjects ought to conduct them back to reason. Parents are frequentlyvery much to be blamed for correcting their children with anger: theyshould be contemplated as beings who are not yet modified; or who have,perhaps, been very badly modified by themselves: nothing is more commonin life, than to see men punish faults of which they are themselves thecause.

Laws are made with a view to maintain society; to uphold its existence;to prevent man associated, from injuring his neighbour; they aretherefore competent to punish those who disturb its harmony, or thosewho commit actions that are injurious to their fellows; whether theseassociates may be the agents of necessity, or whether they are freeagents, it suffices to know they are susceptible of modification, andare therefore submitted to the operation of the law. Penal laws are, orought to be, those motives which experience has shewn capable ofrestraining the inordinate passions of man, or of annihilating theimpulse these passions give to his will; from whatever necessary causeman may derive these passions, the legislator proposes to arrest theireffect, when he takes suitable means, when he adopts proper methods, heis certain of success. The Judge, in decreeing to crime, gibbets,tortures, or any other chastisement whatever, does nothing more than isdone by the architect, who in building a house, places gutters to carryoff the rain, and prevent it from sapping the foundation.

Whatever may be the cause that obliges man to act, society possesses theright to crush the effects, as much as the man whose land would beruined by a river, has to restrain its waters by a bank: or even, if heis able, to turn its course. It is by virtue of this right that societyhas the power to intimidate, the faculty to punish, with a view to itsown conservation, those who may be tempted to injure it; or those whocommit actions which are acknowledged really to interrupt its repose; tobe inimical to its security; repugnant to its happiness.

It will, perhaps, he argued, that society does not, usually, punishthose faults in which the will has no share; that, in fact, it punishesthe will alone; that this it is which decides the nature of the crime,and the degree of its atrocity; that if this will be not free, it oughtnot to be punished. I reply, that society is an assemblage of sensiblebeings, susceptible of reason, who desire their own welfare; who fearevil, and seek after good. These dispositions enable their will to be somodified or determined, that they are capable of holding such a conductas will conduce to the end they have in view. Education, the laws,public opinion, example, habit, fear, are the causes that must modifyassociated man, influence his will, regulate his passions, restrain theactions of him who is capable of injuring the end of his association,and thereby make him concur to the general happiness. These causes areof a nature to make impressions on every man, whose organization, whoseessence, whose sanity, places him in a capacity to contract the habits,to imbibe the modes of thinking, to adopt the manner of acting, withwhich society is willing to inspire him. All the individuals of thehuman species are susceptible of fear, from whence it flows as a naturalconsequence, that the fear of punishment, or the privation of thehappiness he desires, are motives that must necessarily more or lessinfluence his will, and regulate his actions. If the man is to be foundwho is so badly constituted as to resist, whose organization is sovicious as to be insensible to those motives which operate upon all hisfellows, he is not fit to live in society; he would contradict the veryend of his association: he would he its enemy; he would place obstaclesto its natural tendency; his rebellious disposition, his unsociablewill, not being susceptible of that modification which is convenient tohis own true interests and to the interests of his fellow-citizens;these would unite themselves against such an enemy; and the law whichis, or ought to be the expression of the general will, would visit withcondign punishment that refractory individual upon whom the motivespresented to him by society, had not the effect which it had beeninduced to expect: in consequence, such an unsociable man would bechastised; he would be rendered miserable, and according to the natureof his crime he would be excluded from society as a being but littlecalculated to concur in its views.

If society has the right to conserve itself, it has also the right totake the means: these means are the laws which present or ought topresent to the will of man those motives which are most suitable todeter him from committing injurious actions. If these motives fail ofthe proper effect, if they are unable to influence him, society, for itsown peculiar good, is obliged to wrest from him the power of doing itfurther injury. From whatever source his actions may arise, therefore,whether they are the result of free-agency, or whether they are theoffspring of necessity, society coerces him if, after having furnishedhim with motives, sufficiently powerful to act upon reasonable beings,it perceives that these motives have not been competent to vanquish hisdepraved nature. It punishes him with justice, when the actions fromwhich it dissuades him are truly injurious to society; it has anunquestionable right to punish, when it only commands those things thatare conformable to the end proposed by man in his association; ordefends the commission of those acts, which are contrary to this end;which are hostile to the nature of beings associated for theirreciprocal advantage. But, on the other hand, the law has not acquiredthe right to punish him: if it has failed to present to him the motivesnecessary to have an influence over his will, it has not the right tocoerce him if the negligence of society has deprived him of the means ofsubsisting; of exercising his talents; of exerting his industry; oflabouring for its welfare. It is unjust, when it punishes those to whomit has, neither given an education, nor honest principles; whom it hasnot enabled to contract habits necessary to the maintenance of society:it is unjust when it punishes them for faults which the wants of theirnature, or the constitution of society has rendered necessary to them:it is unjust, it is irrational, whenever it chastises them for havingfollowed those propensities, which example, which public opinion, whichthe institutions, which society itself conspires to give them. In short,the law is defective when it does not proportion the punishment to thereal evil which society has sustained. The last degree of injustice, theacme of folly is, when society is so blinded as to inflict punishment onthose citizens who have served it usefully.

The _penal_ laws, in exhibiting terrifying objects to man, who must besupposed susceptible of fear, presents him with motives calculated tohave an influence over his will. The idea of pain, the privation ofliberty, the fear of death, are, to a being well constituted, in thefull enjoyment of his faculties, very puissant obstacles, that stronglyoppose themselves to the impulse of his unruly desires: when these donot coerce his will, when they fail to arrest his progress, he is anirrational being; a madman; a being badly organized; against whomsociety has the right to guarantee itself; against whom it has a rightto take measures for its own security. Madness is, without doubt, aninvoluntary, a necessary state; nevertheless, no one feels it unjust todeprive the insane of their liberty, although their actions can only beimputed to the derangement of their brain. The wicked are men whosebrain is either constantly or transitorily disturbed; still they must hepunished by reason of the evil they commit; they must always be placedin the impossibility of injuring society: if no hope remains of bringingthem back to a reasonable conduct--if every prospect of recalling themto their duty has vanished--if they cannot be made to adopt a mode ofaction conformable to the great end of association--they must be forever excluded its benefits.

It will not be requisite to examine here, how far the punishments whichsociety inflicts upon those who offend against it, may be reasonablycarried. Reason should seem to indicate that the law ought to shew tothe necessary crimes of man, all the indulgence that is compatible withthe conservation of society. The system of fatalism, as we have seen,does not leave crime unpunished; but it is, at least, calculated tomoderate the barbarity with which a number of nations punish the victimsto their anger. This cruelty becomes still more absurd, when experiencehas shewn its inutility: the habit of witnessing ferocious punishmentsfamiliarizes criminals with the idea. If it be true that societypossesses the right of taking away the life of its members--if it bereally a fact, that the death of a criminal, thenceforth useless, can beadvantageous for society, which it will be necessary to examine,humanity, at least, exacts that this death should not be accompaniedwith useless tortures; with which laws, perhaps in this instance toorigorous, frequently seem to delight in overwhelming their victim. Thiscruelty seems to defeat its own end, it only serves to make the culprit,who is immolated to the public vengeance, suffer without any advantageto society; it moves the compassion of the spectator, interests him infavor of the miserable offender who groans under its weight; itimpresses nothing upon the wicked, but the sight of those crueltiesdestined for himself; which but too frequently renders him moreferocious, more cruel, more the enemy of his associates: if the exampleof death was less frequent, even without being accompanied withtortures, it would be more efficacious. If experience was consulted, itwould be found that the greater number of criminals only look upon deathas a _bad quarter of an hour_. It is an unquestionable fact, that athief seeing one of his comrades, display a want of firmness under thepunishment, said to him: _"Is not this what I have often told you, thatin our business, we have one evil more than the rest of mankind?"_Robberies are daily committed, even at the foot of the scaffolds wherecriminals are punished. In those nations, where the penalty of death isso lightly inflicted, has sufficient attention been paid to the fact,that society is yearly deprived of a great number of individuals whowould be able to render it very useful service, if made to work, andthus indemnify the community for the injuries they have committed? Thefacility with which the lives of men are taken away, proves theincapacity of counsellors; is an evidence of the negligence oflegislators: they find it a much shorter road, that it gives them lesstrouble to destroy the citizens than to seek after the means to renderthem better.

What shall be said for the unjust cruelty of some nations, in which thelaw, that ought to have for its object the advantage of the whole,appears to be made only for the security of the most powerful? How shallwe account for the inhumanity of those societies, in which punishmentsthe most disproportionate to the crime, unmercifully take away the livesof men, whom the most urgent necessity, the dreadful alternative offamishing in a land of plenty, has obliged to become criminal? It isthus that in a great number of civilized nations, the life of thecitizen is placed in the same scales with money; that the unhappy wretchwho is perishing from hunger, who is writhing under the most abjectmisery, is put to death for having taken a pitiful portion of thesuperfluity of another whom he beholds rolling in abundance! It is thisthat, in many otherwise very enlightened societies, is called _justice_,or making the punishment commensurate with the crime.

Let the man of humanity, whose tender feelings are alive to the welfareof his species--let the moralist, who preaches virtue, who holds outforbearance to man--let the philosopher, who dives into the secrets ofNature--let the theologian himself say, if this dreadful iniquity, thisheinous sin, does not become yet more crying, when the laws decree themost cruel tortures for crimes to which the most irrational customs gavebirth--which bad institutions engender--which evil examples multiply? Isnot this something like building a sorry, inconvenient hovel, and thenpunishing the inhabitant, because he does not find all the conveniencesof the most complete mansion, of the most finished structure? Man, as atcannot be too frequently repeated, is so prone to evil, only becauseevery thing appears to urge him on to the commission of it, by toofrequently shewing him vice triumphant: his education is void in a greatnumber of states, perhaps defective in nearly all; in many places hereceives from society no other principles, save those of anunintelligible superstition; which make but a feeble barrier againstthose propensities that are excited by dissolute manners; which areencouraged by corrupt examples: in vain the law cries out to him:"abstain from the goods of thy neighbour;" his wants, more powerful,loudly declare to him that he must live: unaccustomed to reason, havingnever been submitted to a wholesome discipline, he conceives he must doit at the expence of a society who has done nothing for him: whocondemns him to groan in misery, to languish in indigence: frequentlydeprived of the common necessaries requisite to support his existence,which his essence, of which he is not the master, compels him toconserve. He compensates himself by theft, he revenges himself byassassination, he becomes a plunderer by profession, a murderer bytrade; he plunges into crime, and seeks at the risque of his life, tosatisfy those wants, whether real or imaginary, to which every thingaround him conspires to give birth. Deprived of education, he has notbeen taught to restrain the fury of his temperament--to guide hispassions with discretion--to curb his inclinations. Without ideas ofdecency, destitute of the true principles of honour, he engages incriminal pursuits that injure his country: which at the same time hasbeen to him nothing more than a step-mother. In the paroxysm of hisrage, in the exacerbation of his mind, he loses sight of his neighbour'srights, he overlooks the gibbet, he forgets the torture; his unrulydesires have become too potent--they have completely absorbed his mind;by a criminal indulgence they have given an inveteracy to his habitswhich preclude him from changing them; laziness has made him torpid:remorse has gnawed his peace; despair has rendered him blind; he rusheson to death; and society is compelled to punish him rigorously, forthose fatal, those necessary dispositions, which it has perhaps itselfengendered in his heart by evil example: or which at least, it has nottaken the pains seasonably to root out; which it has neglected to opposeby suitable motives--by those calculated to give him honest principles--to excite him to industrious habits, to imbue him with virtuousinclinations. Thus, society frequently punishes those propensities ofwhich it is itself the author, or which its negligence has suffered tospring up in the mind of man: it acts like those unjust fathers, whochastise their children for vices which they have themselves made themcontract.

However unjust, however unreasonable this conduct may be, or appear tobe, it is not the less necessary: society, such as it is, whatever maybe its corruption, whatever vices may pervade its institutions, likeevery thing else in Nature, is willing to subsist; tends to conserveitself: in consequence, it is obliged to punish those excesses which itsown vicious constitution has produced: in despite of its peculiarprejudices, notwithstanding its vices, it feels cogently that its ownimmediate security demands that it should destroy the conspiracies ofthose who make war against its tranquillity: if these, hurried on by thefoul current of their necessary propensities, disturb its repose--if,borne on the stream of their ill-directed desires, they injure itsinterests, this following the natural law, which obliges it to labour toits own peculiar conservation, removes them out of its road; punishesthem with more or less rigor, according to the objects to which itattaches the greatest importance, or which it supposes best suited tofurther its own peculiar welfare: without doubt, it deceives itselffrequently, both upon these objects and the means; but it deceivesitself necessarily, for want of the knowledge calculated to enlightenit, with regard to its true interests; for want of those, who regulateits movements possessing proper vigilance--suitable talents--therequisite virtue. From this it will appear, that the injustice of asociety badly constituted, and blinded by its prejudices, is asnecessary, as the crimes of those by whom it is hostilely attacked--bywhose vices it is distracted. The body politic, when in a state ofinsanity, cannot act more consistently with reason, than one of itsmembers whose brain is disturbed by madness.

It will still be said that these maxims, by submitting every thing tonecessity, must confound, or even destroy the notions man forms ofjustice and injustice; of good and evil; of merit and demerit: I denyit. Although man, in every thing he does, acts necessarily, his actionsare good, they are just, they are meritorious, every time they tend tothe real utility of his fellows; of the society of which he makes apart: they are, of necessity, distinguished from those which are reallyprejudicial to the welfare of his associates. Society is just, it isgood, it is worthy our reverence, when it procures for all its members,their physical wants, when it affords them protection, when it securestheir liberty, when it puts them in possession of their natural rights.It is ill this that consists all the happiness of which the socialcompact is susceptible: society is unjust, it is bad, it is unworthy ouresteem, when it is partial to a few, when it is cruel to the greaternumber: it is then that it multiplies its enemies, obliges them torevenge themselves by criminal actions which it is under the necessityto punish. It is not upon the caprices of political society that dependthe true notions of justice and injustice--the right ideas of moral goodand evil--a just appreciation of merit and demerit; it is upon_utility_, upon the necessity of things, which always forces man to feelthat there exists a mode of acting on which he implicitly relies, whichhe is obliged to venerate, which he cannot help approving either in hisfellows, in himself, or in society: whilst there is another mode towhich he cannot lend his confidence, which his nature makes him to hate,which his feelings compel him to condemn. It is upon his own peculiaressence that man founds his ideas of pleasure and of pain--of right andof wrong--of vice and of virtue: the only difference between these is,that pleasure and pain make them instantaneously felt in his brain; hebecomes conscious of their existence upon the spot; in the place ofwhich, the advantages that accrue to him from justice, the benefit thathe derives from virtue, frequently do not display themselves but after along train of reflections--after multiplied experience and complicatedattention; which many, either from a defect in their conformation, orfrom the peculiarity of the circumstances under which they are placed,are prevented from making, or at least from making correctly.

By a necessary consequence of this truism, the system of fatalism,although it has frequently been so accused, does not tend to encourageman in crime, to make remorse vanish from his mind. His propensities areto be ascribed to his nature; the use he makes of his passions dependsupon his habits, upon his opinions, upon the ideas he has received inhis education; upon the examples held forth by the society in which helives. These things are what necessarily decide his conduct. Thus, whenhis temperament renders him susceptible of strong passions, he isviolent in his desires, whatever may be his speculations.

_Remorse_ is the painful sentiment excited in him by grief, causedeither by the immediate or probable future effect of his indulgedpassions: if these effects were always useful to him, he would notexperience remorse; but, as soon as he is assured that his actionsrender him hateful, that his passions make him contemptible; or, as soonas he fears he shall be punished in some mode or other, he becomesrestless, discontented with himself--he reproaches himself with his ownconduct--he feels ashamed--he fears the judgement of those beings whoseaffection he has learned to esteem--in whose good-will he finds his owncomfort deeply interested. His experience proves to him that the wickedman is odious to all those upon whom his actions have any influence: ifthese actions are concealed at the moment of commission, he knows itvery rarely happens they remain so for ever. The smallest reflectionconvinces him that there is no wicked man who is not ashamed of his ownconduct--who is truly contented with himself--who does not envy thecondition of the good man--who is not obliged to acknowledge that hehas paid very dearly for those advantages he is never able to enjoy,without experiencing the most troublesome sensations, without making themost bitter reproaches against himself; then he feels ashamed, despiseshimself, hates himself, his conscience becomes alarmed, remorse followsin it train. To be convinced of the truth of this principle it is onlyrequisite to cast our eyes on the extreme precautions that tyrants andvillains, who are otherwise sufficiently powerful not to dread thepunishment of man, take to prevent exposure;--to what lengths they pushtheir cruelties against some, to what meannesses they stoop to others ofthose who are able to hold them up to public scorn. Have they not, then,a consciousness of their own iniquities? Do they not know that they arehateful and contemptible? Have they not remorse? Is their conditionhappy? Persons well brought up acquire these sentiments in theireducation; which are either strengthened or enfeebled by public opinion,by habit, or by the examples set before them. In a depraved society,remorse either does not exist, or presently disappears; because, in allhis actions, it is ever the judgment of his fellow-man that man isobliged necessarily to regard. He never feels either shame or remorsefor actions he sees approved, that are practised by the world. Undercorrupt governments, venal souls, avaricious being, mercenaryindividuals, do not blush either at meanness, robbery, or rapine, whenit is authorized by example; in licentious nations, no one blushes atadultery except the husband, at whose expence it is committed; insuperstitious countries, man does not blush to assassinate his fellowfor his opinions. It will be obvious, therefore, that his remorse, aswell as the ideas, whether right or wrong, which man has of decency,virtue, justice, &c. are the necessary consequence of his temperament,modified by the society in which he lives: assassins and thieves, whenthey live only among themselves, have neither shame nor remorse.

Thus, I repeat, all the actions of man are necessary those which arealways useful, which constantly contribute to the real, tend to thepermanent happiness of his species, are called _virtues_, and arenecessarily pleasing to all who experience their influence; at least, iftheir passions or false opinions do not oblige them to judge in thatmanner which is but little accordant with the nature of things: each manacts, each individual judges, necessarily, according to his own peculiarmode of existence--after the ideas, whether true or false, which he hasformed with regard to his happiness. There are necessary actions whichman is obliged to approve; there are others, that, in despite ofhimself, he is compelled to censure; of which the idea generates shamewhen his reflection permits him to contemplate them under the same pointof view that they are regarded by his associates. The virtuous man andthe wicked man act from motives equally necessary: they differ simply intheir organization--in the ideas they form to themselves of happiness:we love the one necessarily--we detest the other from the samenecessity. The law of his nature, which wills that a sensible beingshall constantly labour to preserve himself, has not left to man thepower to choose, or the free-agency to prefer pain to pleasure--vice toutility--crime to virtue. It is, then, the essence of man himself thatobliges him to discriminate those actions which are advantageous to him,form those which are prejudicial to his interest, from those which arebaneful to his felicity.

This distinction subsists even in the most corrupt societies, in whichthe ideas of virtue, although completely effaced from their conduct,remain the same in their mind. Let us suppose a matt, who had decidedlydetermined for villainy, who should say to himself--"It is folly to bevirtuous in a society that is depraved, in a community that isdebauched." Let us suppose also, that he has sufficient address, theunlooked-for good fortune to escape censure or punishment, during a longseries of years; I say, that in despite of all these circumstances,apparently so advantageous for himself, such a man has neither beenhappy nor contented with his own conduct, He has been in continualagonies--ever at war with his own actions--in a state of constantagitation. How much pain, how much anxiety, has he not endured in thisperpetual conflict with himself? How many precautions, what excessivelabour, what endless solicitude, has he not been compelled to employ inthis continued struggle; how many embarrassments, how many cares, has henot experienced in this eternal wrestling with his associates, whosepenetration he dreads, whose scorn he fears will follow a true knowledgeof his pursuits. Demand of him what he thinks of himself, he will shrinkfrom the question. Approach the bedside of this villain at the moment heis dying; ask him if he would be willing to recommence, at the sameprice, a life of similar agitation? If he is ingenuous, he will avowthat he has tasted neither repose nor happiness; that each crime filledhim with inquietude--that reflection prevented him from sleeping--thatthe world has been to him only one continued scene of alarm--anuninterrupted concatenation of terror--an everlasting, anxiety of mind;--that to live peaceably upon bread and water, appears to him to be amuch happier, a more easy condition, than to possess riches, credit,reputation, honours, on the same terms that he has himself acquiredthem. If this villain, notwithstanding all his success, finds hiscondition so deplorable, what must be thought of the feelings of thosewho have neither the same resources nor the same advantages to succeedin their criminal projects.

Thus, the system of necessity is a truth not only founded upon certainexperience, but, again, it establishes morals upon an immoveable basis.Far from sapping the foundations of virtue, it points out its necessity;it clearly shows the invariable sentiments it must excite--sentiments sonecessary, so strong, so congenial to his existence, that all theprejudices of man--all the vices of his institutions--all the effect ofevil example, have never been able entirely to eradicate them from hismind. When he mistakes the advantages of virtue, it ought to be ascribedto the errors that are infused into him--to the irrationality of hisinstitutions: all his wanderings are the fatal consequences of error,--the necessary result of prejudices which have identified themselves withhis existence. Let it not, therefore, any longer be imputed to hisnature that he has become wicked, but to those baneful opinions which hehas imbibed with his mother's milk,--that have rendered him ambitious,avaricious, envious, haughty, arrogant, debauched, intolerant,obstinate, prejudiced, incommodious to his fellows, mischievous tohimself. It is education that carries into his system the germ of thosevices which necessarily torment him during the whole course of his life.

_Fatalism_ is reproached with discouraging man--with damping the ardourof his soul--with plunging him into apathy--with destroying the bondsthat should connect him with society. Its opponents say, "If every thingis necessary, we must let things go on, and not be disturbed by anything." But does it depend on man to be sensible or not? Is he master offeeling or not feeling pain? If Nature has endowed him with a humane,with a tender soul, is it possible he should not interest himself in avery lively manner, in the welfare of beings whom he knows are necessaryto his own peculiar happiness? His feelings are necessary: they dependon his own peculiar nature, cultivated by education. His imagination,prompt to concern itself with the felicity of his race, causes his heartto be oppressed at the sight of those evils his fellow-creature isobliged to endure,--makes his soul tremble in the contemplation of themisery arising from the despotism that crushes him--from thesuperstition that leads him astray--from the passions that distract himin a state of warfare against his neighbour. Although he knows thatdeath is the fatal, the necessary period to the form of all beings, hissoul is not affected in a less lively manner at the loss of a belovedwife,--at the demise of a child calculated to console his old age,--atthe final separation from an esteemed friend who had become dear to hisheart. Although he is not ignorant that it is the essence of fire toburn, he does not believe he is dispensed from using his utmost effortsto arrest the progress of a conflagration. Although he is intimatelyconvinced that the evils to which he is a witness, are the necessaryconsequence of primitive errors with which his fellow-citizens areimbued, he feels he ought to display truth to them, if Nature has givenhim the necessary courage; under the conviction, that if they listen toit, it will, by degrees, become a certain remedy for their sufferings,that it will produce those necessary effects which it is of its essenceto operate.

If the speculations of man modify his conduct, if they change histemperament, he ought not to doubt that the system of necessity wouldhave the most advantageous influence over him; not only is it suitableto calm the greater part of his inquietude, but it will also contributeto inspire him with a useful submission, a rational resignation, to thedecrees of a destiny with which his too great sensibility frequentlycauses him to be overwhelmed. This happy apathy, without doubt, wouldbe, desirable to those whose souls, too tender to brook the inequalitiesof life, frequently render them the deplorable sport of their fate; orwhose organs, too weak to make resistance to the buffettings of fortune,incessantly expose them to be dashed in pieces under the rude blows ofadversity.

But, of all the important advantages the human race would be enabled toderive from the doctrine of fatalism, if man was to apply it to hisconduct, none would be of greater magnitude, none of more happyconsequence, none that would more efficaciously corroborate hishappiness, than that general indulgence, that universal toleration, thatmust necessarily spring from the opinion, that _all is necessary_. Inconsequence, of the adoption of this principle, the fatalist, if he hada sensible soul, would commisserate the prejudices of his fellow-man--would lament over his wanderings--would seek to undeceive him--would tryby gentleness to lead him into the right path, without ever irritatinghimself against his weakness, without ever insulting his misery. Indeed,what right have we to hate or despise man for his opinions? Hisignorance, his prejudices, his imbecility, his vices, his passions, hisweakness, are they not the inevitable consequence of viciousinstitutions? Is he not sufficiently punished by the multitude of evilsthat afflict him on every side? Those despots who crush him with an ironsceptre, are they not continual victims to their own peculiarrestlessness--mancipated to their perpetual diffidence--eternal slavesto their suspicions? Is there one wicked individual who enjoys a pure,an unmixed, a real happiness? Do not nations unceasingly suffer fromtheir follies? Are they not the incessant dupes to their prejudices? Isnot the ignorance of chiefs, the ill-will they bear to reason, thehatred they have for truth, punished by the imbecility of theircitizens, by the ruin of the states they govern? In short, the fatalistwould grieve to witness necessity each moment exercising its severedecrees upon mortals who are ignorant of its power, or who feel itscastigation, without being willing to acknowledge the hand from whenceit proceeds; he will perceive that ignorance is necessary, thatcredulity is the necessary result of ignorance--that slavery and bondageare necessary consequences of ignorant credulity--that corruption ofmanners springs necessarily from slavery--that the miseries of society,the unhappiness of its members, are the necessary offspring of thiscorruption. The fatalist, in consequence, of these ideas, will neitherhe a gloomy misanthrope, nor a dangerous citizen; he will pardon in hisbrethren those wanderings, he will forgive them those errors--whichtheir vitiated nature, by a thousand causes, has rendered necessary--hewill offer them consolation--he will endeavour to inspire them withcourage--he will be sedulous to undeceive them in their idle notions, intheir chimerical ideas; but he will never display against thembitterness of soul--he will never show them that rancorous animositywhich is more suitable, to make them revolt from his doctrines, than toattract them to reason;--he will not disturb the repose of society--hewill not raise the people to insurrection against the sovereignauthority; on the contrary, he will feel that the miserable blindness ofthe great, and the wretched perverseness, the fatal obstinacy of so manyconductors of the people, are the necessary consequence of that flatterythat is administered to them in their infancy--that feeds their hopeswith allusive falsehoods--of the depraved malice of those who surroundthem--who wickedly corrupt them, that they may profit by their folly--that they may take advantage of their weakness: in short, that thesethings are the inevitable effect of that profound ignorance of theirtrue interest, in which every thing strives to keep them.

The fatalist has no right to be vain of his peculiar talents; noprivilege to be proud of his virtues; he knows that these qualities areonly the consequence of his natural organization, modified bycircumstances that have in no wise depended upon himself. He willneither have hatred nor feel contempt for those whom Nature andcircumstances have not favoured in a similar manner. It is the fatalistwho ought to be humble, who should be modest from principle: is he notobliged to acknowledge, that he possesses nothing that he has notpreviously received?

In fact, will not every thing conduct to indulgence the fatalist whomexperience has convinced of the necessity of things? Will he not seewith pain, that it is the essence of a society badly constituted,unwisely governed, enslaved to prejudice, attached to unreasonablecustoms, submitted to irrational laws, degraded under despotism,corrupted by luxury, inebriated by false opinions, to be filled withtrifling members; to be composed of vicious citizens; to be made up ofcringing slaves, who are proud of their chains; of ambitious men,without idea of true glory; of misers and prodigals; of fanatics andlibertines! Convinced of the necessary connection of things, he will notbe surprised to see that the supineness of their chiefs carriesdiscouragement into their country, or that the influence of theirgovernors stirs up bloody wars by which it is depopulated, and causesuseless expenditures that impoverish it; that all these excesses united,is the reason why so many nations contain only men wanting happiness,without understanding to attain it; who are devoid of morals, destituteof virtue. In all this he will contemplate nothing more than thenecessary action and re-action of physics upon morals, of morals uponphysics. In short, all who acknowledge fatality, will remain persuadedthat a nation badly governed is a soil very fruitful in venomousreptiles--very abundant in poisonous plants; that these have such aplentiful growth as to crowd each other and choak themselves. It is in acountry cultivated by the hands of a Lycurgus, that he will witness theproduction of intrepid citizens, of noble-minded individuals, ofdisinterested men, who are strangers to irregular pleasures. In acountry cultivated by a Tiberius, he will find nothing but villains withdepraved hearts, men with mean contemptible souls, despicable informers,execrable traitors. It is the soil, it is the circumstances in which manfinds himself placed, that renders him either a useful object or aprejudicial being: the wise man avoids the one, as he would thosedangerous reptiles whose nature it is to sting and communicate theirdeadly venom; he attaches himself to the other, esteems him, loves him,as he does those delicious fruits with whose rich maturity his palate ispleasantly gratified, with whose cooling juices he finds himselfagreeably refreshed: he sees the wicked without anger--he cherishes thegood with pleasure--he delights in the bountiful: he knows full wellthat the tree which is languishing without culture in the arid, sandydesert, that is stunted for want of attention, leafless for want ofmoisture, that has grown crooked from neglect, become barren from wantof loam, whose tender bark is gnawed by rapacious beasts of prey,pierced by innumerable insects, would perhaps have expanded far and wideits verdant boughs from a straight and stately stem, have brought forthdelectable fruit, have afforded from its luxuriant foliage under itslambent leaves an umbrageous refreshing retreat from the scorching raysof a meridian sun, have offered beneath its swelling branches, under itsmatted tufts a shelter from the pitiless storm, it its seed had beenfortunately sown in a more fertile soil, placed in a more congenialclimate, had experienced the fostering cares of a skilful cultivator.

Let it not then be said, that it is degrading man reduce his functionsto a pure mechanism; that it is shamefully to undervalue him,scandalously to abuse him, to compare him to a tree; to an abjectvegetation. The philosopher devoid of prejudice does not understand thislanguage, invented by those who are ignorant of what constitutes thetrue dignity of man. A tree is an object which, in its station, joinsthe useful with the agreeable; it merits our approbation when itproduces sweet and pleasant fruit; when it affords a favourable shade.All machines are precious, when they are truly useful, when theyfaithfully perform the functions for which they are designed. Yes, Ispeak it with courage, reiterate it with pleasure, the honest man, whenhe has talents, when he possesses virtue, is, for the beings of hisspecies, a tree that furnishes them with delicious fruit, that affordsthem refreshing shelter: the honest man is a machine of which thesprings are adapted to fulfil its functions in a manner that mustgratify the expectation of all his fellows. No, I should not blush, Ishould not feel degraded, to be a machine of this sort; and my heartwould leap with joy, if I could foresee that the fruit of my reflectionswould one day be useful to my race, consoling to my fellow-man.

Is not Nature herself a vast machine, of which the human species is buta very feeble spring? I see nothing contemptible either in her or herproductions; all the beings who come out of her hands are good, arenoble, are sublime, whenever they co-operate to the production ofanother, to the maintenance of harmony in the sphere where they mustact. Of whatever nature the soul may be, whether it is made mortal, orwhether it be supposed immortal; whether it is regarded as a spirit, orwhether it be looked upon as a portion of the body; it will be foundnoble, it will be estimated great, it will be ranked good, it will beconsidered sublime, in a Socrates, in an Aristides, in a Cato: it willbe thought abject, it will be viewed as despicable, it will be calledcorrupt, in a Claudius, in a Sejanus, in a Nero: its energies will beadmired, we shall be delighted with its manner, fascinated with itsefforts, in a Shakespeare, in a Corneille, in a Newton, in aMontesquieu: its baseness will be lamented, when we behold mean,contemptible men, who flatter tyranny, or who servilely cringe at thefoot of superstition.

All that has been said in the course of this work, proves clearly thatevery thing is necessary; that every thing is always in order,relatively to Nature; where all beings do nothing more than follow thelaws that are imposed on their respective classes. It is part of herplan, that certain portions of the earth shall bring forth deliciousfruits, shall blossom beauteous flowers; whilst others shall onlyfurnish brambles, shall yield nothing but noxious vegetables: she hasbeen willing that some societies should produce wise men, great heroes;that others should only give birth to abject souls, contemptible men,without energy, destitute of virtue. Passions, winds, tempests,hurricanes, volcanoes, wars, plagues, famines, diseases, death, are asnecessary to her eternal march as the beneficent heat of the sun, theserenity of the atmosphere, the gentle showers of spring, plentifulyears, peace, health, harmony, life: vice and virtue, darkness andlight, and science are equally necessary; the one are not benefits, theother are not evils, except for those beings whose happiness theyinfluence by either favouring or deranging their peculiar mode ofexistence. _The whole cannot be miserable, but it may contain unhappyindividuals._

Nature, then, distributes with the same hand that which is called_order_, and that which is called _disorder_; that which is called_pleasure_, and that which is called _pain_: in short, she diffuses bythe necessity of her existence, good and evil in the world we inhabit.Let not man, therefore, either arraign her bounty, or tax her withmalice; let him not imagine that his feeble cries, his weaksupplications, can never arrest her colossal power, always acting afterimmutable laws; let him submit silently to his condition; and when hesuffers, let him not seek a remedy by recurring to chimeras that his owndistempered imagination has created; let him draw from the stores ofNature herself, the remedies which she offers for the evil she bringsupon him: if she sends him diseases, let him search in her bosom forthose salutary productions to which she has given birth, which will curethem: if she gives him errors, she also furnishes him with experience tocounteract them; in truth, she supplies him with an antidote suitable todestroy their fatal effects. If she permits man to groan under thepressure of his vices, beneath the load of his follies, she also shewshim in virtue, a sure remedy for his infirmities: if the evils that somesocieties experience are necessary, when they shall have become tooincommodious they will be irresistibly obliged to search for thoseremedies which Nature will always point out to them. If this Nature hasrendered existence insupportable, to some unfortunate beings, whom sheappears to have selected for her victims, still death, is a door thatwill surely be opened to them--that will deliver them from theirmisfortunes, although in their puny, imbecile, wayward judgment, theymay be deemed impossible of cure.

Let not man, then, accuse Nature with being inexorable to him, sincethere does not exist in her whole circle an evil for which she has notfurnished the remedy, to those who have the courage to seek it, who havethe fortitude to apply it. Nature follows general and necessary laws inall her operations; physical calamity and moral evil are not to beascribed to her want of kindness, but to the necessity of things.Physical calamity is the derangement produced in man's organs byphysical causes which he sees act: moral evil is the derangementproduced in him by physical causes of which the action is to him asecret. These causes always terminate by producing sensible effects,which are capable of striking his senses; neither the thoughts nor thewill of man ever shew themselves, but by the marked effects they produceeither in himself or upon those beings whom Nature has renderedsusceptible of feeling their impulse. He suffers, because it is of theessence of some beings to derange the economy of his machine; he enjoys,because the properties of some beings are analogous to his own mode ofexistence; he is born, because it is of the nature of some matter tocombine itself under a determinate form; he lives, he acts, he thinks,because it is of the essence of certain combinations to maintainthemselves in existence by given means for a season; at length he dies,because a necessary law prescribes that all the combinations which areformed, shall either be destroyed or dissolve themselves. From all thisit results, that Nature is impartial to all its productions; she submitsman, like all other beings, to those eternal laws from which she has noteven exempted herself; if she was to suspend these laws, even for aninstant, from that moment disorder would reign in her, system; herharmony would be disturbed.

Those who wish to study Nature, must take experience for their guide;this, and this only, can enable them to dive into her secrets, tounravel by degrees, the frequently imperceptible woof of those slendercauses, of which she avails herself to operate the greatest phenomena:by the aid of experience, man often discovers in her properties,perceives modes of action entirely unknown to the ages which havepreceded him; those effects which his grandfathers contemplated asmarvellous, which they regarded as supernatural efforts, looked upon asmiracles, have become familiar to him in the present day, and are atthis moment contemplated as simple and natural consequences, of which hecomprehends the mechanism--of which he understands the cause--of whichhe can unfold the manner of action. Man, in fathoming Nature, hasarrived at discovering the true causes of earthquakes; of the periodicalmotion of the sea; of subterraneous conflagrations; of meteors; of theelectrical fluid, the whole of which were considered by his ancestors,and are still so by the ignorant, by the uninformed, as indubitablesigns of heaven's wrath. His posterity, in following up, in rectifyingthe experience already made, will perhaps go further, and discover thosecauses which are totally veiled from present eyes. The united efforts ofthe human species will one day perhaps penetrate even into the sanctuaryof Nature, and throw into light many of those mysteries which up to thepresent time she seems to have refused to all his researches.

In contemplating man under his true aspect; in quitting authority tofollow experience; in laying aside error to consult reason; insubmitting every thing to physical laws, from which his imagination hasvainly exerted its utmost power to withdraw them; it will be found thatthe phenomena of the moral world follow exactly the same general rulesas those of the physical; that the greater part of those astonishingeffects, which ignorance, aided by his prejudices, make him consider asinexplicable, and regard as wonderful, are natural consequences flowingfrom simple causes. He will find that the eruption of a volcano and thebirth of a Tamerlane are to Nature the same thing; in recurring to theprimitive causes of those striking events which he beholds withconsternation, which he contemplates with fearful alarm, in falling backto the sources of those terrible revolutions, those frightfulconvulsions, those dreadful explosions that distract mankind, lay wastethe fairest works of Nature, ravage nations, and tear up society by theroots; he will find the wills that compassed the most surprisingchanges, that operated the most extensive alterations in the state ofthings, that brought about the most unlooked-for events, were moved byphysical causes, whose exility made him treat them as contemptible;whose want of consequence in his own purblind eyes led him to believethem utterly incapable to give birth to the phenomena whose magnitudestrikes him with such awe, whose stupendous range fills him with suchamazement.

If man was to judge of causes by their effects, there would be no smallcauses in the universe. In a Nature where every thing is connected,where every thing acts and re-acts, moves and changes, composes anddecomposes, forms and destroys, there is not an atom which does not playan important part--that does not occupy a necessary station; there isnot an imperceptible particle, however minute, which, placed inconvenient circumstances, does not operate the most prodigious effects.If man was in a capacity to follow the eternal chain, to pursue theconcatenated links, that connect with their causes all the effects hewitnesses, without losing sight of any one of its rings,--if he couldunravel the ends of those insensible threads that give impulse to thethoughts, decision to the will, direction to the passions of those menwho are called mighty, according to their actions, he would find, theyare true atoms which Nature employs to move the moral world; that it isthe unexpected but necessary function of these indiscernible particlesof matter, it is their aggregation, their combination, their proportion,their fermentation, which modifying the individual by degrees, indespite of himself, frequently without his own knowledge, make himthink, will, and act, in a determinate, but necessary mode. If, then,the will and the actions of this individual have an influence over agreat number of other men, here is the moral world in a state of thegreatest combustion, and those consequences ensue which man contemplateswith fearful wonder. Too much acrimony in the bile of a fanatic--bloodtoo much inflamed in the heart of a conqueror--a painful indigestion inthe stomach of a monarch--a whim that passes in the mind of a woman--aresometimes causes sufficient to bring on war--to send millions of men tothe slaughter--to root out an entire people--to overthrow walls--toreduce cities into ashes--to plunge nations into slavery--to put a wholepeople into mourning--to breed famine in a land--to engender pestilence--to propagate calamity--to extend misery--to spread desolation far andwide upon the surface of our globe, through a long series of ages.

The dominant passion of an individual of the human species, when itdisposes of the passions of many others, arrives at combining theirwill, at uniting their efforts, and thus decides the condition of man.It is after this manner that an ambitious, crafty, and voluptuous Arab,gave to his countrymen an impulse of which the effect was thesubjugation and desolation of vast countries in Asia, in Africa, and inEurope; whose consequences were sufficiently potential to erect a new,extensive, but slavish empire; to give a novel system of religion tomillions of human beings; to overturn the altars of their former gods;in short, to alter the opinions, to change the customs of a considerableportion of the population of the earth. But in examining the primitivesources of this strange revolution, what were the concealed causes thathad an influence over this man--that excited his peculiar passions, andmodified his temperament? What was the matter from the combination ofwhich resulted a crafty, ambitious, enthusiastic, and eloquent man; inshort, a personage competent to impose on his fellow-creatures--capableof making them concur in his most extravagant views. They were,undoubtedly, the insensible particles of his blood; the imperceptibletexture of his fibres; the salts, more or less acrid, that stimulatedhis nerves; the proportion of igneous fluid that circulated in hissystem. From whence came these elements? It was from the womb of hismother; from the aliments which nourished him; from the climate in whichhe had his birth; from the ideas he received; from the air which herespired; without reckoning a thousand inappreciable, a thousandtransitory causes, that in the instance given had modified, haddetermined the passions of this importent being, who had therebyacquired the capacity to change the face of this mundane sphere.

To causes so weak in their principles, if in the origin the slightestobstacle had been opposed, these wonderful events, which have astoundedman, would never have been produced. The fit of an ague, the consequenceof bile a little too much inflamed, had sufficed, perhaps, to haverendered abortive all the vast projects, of the legislator of theMussulmen. Spare diet, a glass of water, a sanguinary evacuation, wouldsometimes have been sufficient to have saved kingdoms.

It will be seen, then, that the condition of the human species, as wellas that of each of its individuals, every instant depends on insensiblecauses, to which circumstances, frequently fugitive, give birth; thatopportunity developes, that convenience puts in action: man attributestheir effects to chance, whilst these causes operate necessarily, actaccording to fixed rules: he has frequently neither the sagacity nor thehonesty to recur to their true principles; he regards such feeblemotives with contempt, because he has been taught to consider them asincapable of producing such stupendous events. They are, however, thesemotives, weak as they may appear to be, these springs, so pitiful in hiseyes, is which according to her necessary laws, suffice in the hands ofNature to move the universe. The conquests of a Gengis-Khan have nothingin them that is more strange to the eye of a philosopher than theexplosion of a mine, caused in its principle by a feeble spark, whichcommences with setting fire to a single grain of powder; this presentlycommunicates itself to many millions of other contiguous grains, ofwhich the united force, the multiplied powers, terminate by blowing upmountains, overthrowing fortifications, or converting populous, well-built cities, into heaps of ruins.

Thus, imperceptible causes, concealed in the bosom of Nature, until themoment their action is displayed, frequently decide the fate of man. Thehappiness or the wretchedness, the prosperity or the misery of eachindividual, as well as that of whole nations, are attached to powerswhich it is impossible for him to foresee, which he cannot appreciate,of which he is incapable to arrest the action. Perhaps at this momentatoms are amassing, insensible particles are combining, of which theassemblage shall form a sovereign, who will be either the scourge or thesaviour of a mighty empire. Man cannot answer for his own destiny onesingle instant; he has no cognizance of what is passing within himself;he is ignorant of the causes which act in the interior of his machine;he knows nothing of the circumstances that will give them activity: heis unacquainted with what may develope their energy; it is,nevertheless, on these causes, impossible to be unravelled by him, thatdepends his condition in life. Frequently, an unforeseen rencontre givesbirth to a passion in his soul, of which the consequences shall,necessarily, have an influence over his felicity. It is thus that themost virtuous man, by a whimsical combination of unlooked-forcircumstances, may become in an instant the most criminal of hisspecies.

This truth, without doubt, will be found frightful--this fact willunquestionably appear terrible: but at bottom, what has it morerevolting than that which teaches him that an infinity of accidents, asirremediable as they are unforeseen, may every instant wrest from himthat life to which he is so strongly attached? Fatalism reconciles thegood man easily to death: it makes him contemplate it as a certain meansof withdrawing himself from wickedness; this system shews death, even tothe happy man himself, as a medium between him and those misfortuneswhich frequently terminate by poisoning his happiness; that end withembittering the most fortunate existence.

Let man, then, submit to necessity: in despite of himself it will alwayshurry him forward: let him resign himself to Nature, let him accept thegood with which she presents him: let him oppose to the necessary evilwhich she makes him experience, those necessary remedies which sheconsents to afford him; let him not disturb his mind with uselessinquietude; let him enjoy with moderation, because he will find thatpain is the necessary companion of excess: let him follow the paths ofvirtue, because every thing will prove to him, even in this world ofperverseness, that it is absolutely necessary to render him estimable inthe eyes of others, to make him contented with himself.

Feeble, vain mortal, thou pretendest to be a free agent. Alas! dost thounot see all the threads which enchain thee? Dost thou not perceive thatthey are atoms which form thee; that they are atoms which move thee;that they are circumstances independent of thyself, that modify thybeing; that they are circumstances over which thou hast not anycontroul, that rule thy destiny? In the puissant Nature that environsthee, shalt thou pretend to be the only being who is able to resist herpower? Dost thou really believe that thy weak prayers will induce her tostop in her eternal march; that thy sickly desires can oblige her tochange her everlasting course?

CHAP. XIII.

_Of the Immortality of the Soul;--of the Doctrine of a future State;--ofthe Fear of Death._

The reflections presented to the reader in this work, tend to shew whatought to be thought of the human soul, as well as of its operations andfaculties: every thing proves, in the most convincing manner, that itacts, that it moves according to laws similar to those prescribed to theother beings of Nature; that it cannot be distinguished from the body;that it is born with it; that it grows up with it; that it is modifiedin the same progression; in short, every thing ought to make manconclude that it perishes with it. This soul, as well as the body,passes through a state of weakness and infancy; it is in this stage ofits existence, that it is assailed by a multitude of modifications; thatit is stored with an infinity of ideas, which it receives from exteriorobjects through the medium of the organs; that it amasses facts, that itcollects experience, whether true or false, that it forms to itself asystem of conduct, according to which it thinks, in conformity withwhich it acts, from whence results either its happiness or its misery,its reason or its delirium, its virtues or its vices; arrived with thebody at its full powers, having in conjunction with it reached maturity,it does not cease for a single instant to partake in common of itssensations, whether these are agreeable or disagreeable; it participatesin all its pleasures; it shares in all its pains; in consequence itconjointly approves or disapproves its state; like it, it is eithersound or diseased; active or languishing; awake or asleep. In old ageman extinguishes entirely, his fibres become rigid, his nerves loosetheir elasticity, his senses are obtunded, his sight grows dim, his earslose their quickness, his ideas become unconnected, his memory fails,his imagination cools: what then becomes of his soul? Alas! it sinksdown with the body; it gets benumbed as this loses its feeling; becomessluggish as this decays in activity; like it, when enfeebled by years itfulfils its functions with pain; this substance, which is deemedspiritual, which is considered immaterial, which it is endeavoured todistinguish from matter, undergoes the same revolutions, experiences thesame vicissitudes, submits to the same modifications, as does the bodyitself.

In despite of this proof of the materiality of the soul, of its identitywith the body, so convincing to the unprejudiced, some thinkers havesupposed, that although the latter is perishable, the former does notperish: that this portion of man enjoys the especial privilege of_immortality_; that it is exempt from dissolution: free from those